


Making a Deal to Silence the Dead

by Merfilly



Category: Seven Devils - Florence + The Machine (Song)
Genre: Gen, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-06-02
Packaged: 2018-04-02 12:06:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4059403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Davanya survived the death of her people, and sets out on a course to put the dead at rest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making a Deal to Silence the Dead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lea_hazel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lea_hazel/gifts).



There is always a catch.

* * *

Davanya moved silently along the walls of the castle, crouching low to keep her silhouette limited. Not that the guards ever looked up, she knew, and the moon was out of the sky this night. Still, her quest was too important to ignore the common sense protocols, for she had been charged to acquire three things. One was a locke of hair, one was a certain hand mirror, and the last…

The last was a death, and it was the one Davanya worried would be her undoing. She had to remind herself that her cause was just. This family was evil, had overrun her own lands, killed so many in their path of conquest. One death, she reasoned, was a small price to pay the witch to have justice for her people. One death on this night to balance the deaths of many, and Davanya would be able to sleep better at night.

* * *

The mirror was wrapped carefully and in her bag, along with a braided locke from the queen herself. Davanya stood over the bed where the prince slept, poignard at the ready. She made herself look at his face, seeing something in those peaceful features that arrested her thrust. Had she seen that face before? Surely not, for Davanya had been a quiet maiden of the village before the invasion. Since then, the only faces she'd seen were those of the dead, haunting her dreams, and the witch.

She drew in a silent breath and struck, crimson blossoming around the blade, welling around her hand, and the prince's sleeping peace shattered in shocked awareness of death. No sound erupted, though, and Davanya made herself meet those eyes to carry the death with her. It was more than the soldiers had done, she believed, for those they had killed.

* * *

The witch was waiting, fully aware of Davanya's return. She looked at the witch… and the face of the prince hovered in her sight, transposed over the softer planes of the witch's features. 

"I couldn't very well stain my hands with the blood of my own, little milk maid," the witch said as realization settled in Davanya's eyes. "You had your needs, and I had mine." She held her hands out for the two items she had requested, and Davanya numbly handed them over. 

"How does killing him resolve my people's deaths, so that they may go to their rest?" Davanya demanded a few minutes later, following the witch to her brewing cauldron. 

"My dear child, you only asked that you have revenge. If you wish to actually expel the souls surrounding you, there are other tasks to be done for that," the witch answered in a sweet voice, while Davanya's hands curled into fists at her side. Yet, Davanya was too honest in her own soul to deny it; she'd still been half-blinded by tears when she found the witch, all but driven mad by the voices plaguing her for release.

* * *

Seven souls, seven deaths, the witch finally said, for she had consented to drive away those that were not tied by blood into Davanya's own soul. Davanya had never had aspirations to be the murderer she now had to become, but each night as Davanya tried to sleep, the plague of madness was too close, whispered in the dying screams of her tortured love ones.

The witch made each death specific, describing all but the final victim to Davanya, and giving her a place within the kingdom to begin for each one. It took her a year to hunt the first, a man of elder years now retired as a ceremonial captain of the guard in the north. When Davanya slid her needle-sword between his ribs, he did not scream at her or call for the guard.

"Thank you," was almost the shape of his lips, and he fell dead, almost jerking her blade from her hand. It made little sense, but when Davanya laid down to sleep that night, the lost souls were quieter by one.

She moved on, going to the next victim on her list, resolved to see the grisly quest through.

* * *

Victim four and five, a pair of brothers, brought Davanya to full suspicion of what was actually going on. She stopped in the next town, having seen the family crest of the invaders in their home, and began looking back over the first three. A little judicious questioning, and the locals in the town showed her suspicions to be correct. Everyone she had killed belonged to that family, to the family of the witch.

It left her curious, for why had the witch set her on killing them all? What had they done to alienate one of power such as she was?

The scream of her dead was such a quiet medley now, but as it was her own mother and father calling to her that she knew she had to complete the task. She rode on, the years between when she had begun and the present seemingly blurred in her memory. Always, the night her people had been killed goaded her on, even as she began tracking the sixth victim's location. Somehow, the witch's locations had always worked, despite time's passage. This one would lead her close to the witch, and when it was done, she would go to her, to find where the seventh could be found.

* * *

The house was small, shrouded by many vines and plants, with a walkway of crushed stone and shell. Davanya was uncertain if she could navigate it without being heard, but she had her goal in mind. This would be the next to last step in her freedom from the dead, to strike out and find her life for herself.

The poignard would be her choice here, as she expected to find a woman. She waited for nightfall, plotting the way in that would disturb the least amount of roosting birds and hopefully guard her feet from a betraying crunch on the path.

She made her way to the house, carefully slipping inside the door, only to have a candle flare and reveal the occupant at the table in the kitchen.

She looked, and Davanya beheld the witch, now older and silver-streaked in her hair.

"What…"

The witch merely shrugged and indicated the other seat. "You have done well, hunting the victims that led to your dead chaining you with their cries. Now, there are but two more deaths, and your dead will rest in peace."

Davanya's brow furrowed in confusion, but she approached the table. "You?"

"And one other. If you do not follow through, the peace you have gathered with each death will be shattered, and the devils of death's screams will haunt you forever more."

"I do not understand."

"Nor will you, mistress of death," the witch stated. "But you have done your best, and I will name your last victim with my dying. For the seventh is born to the wicked bloodline you have helped end, and can only be revealed with my final breath." She sipped the tea in front of her. "All steps to this point were born in a devil's deal, and you are the avenging angel. So strike me down, and know the last one who walks, carrying the demon blood of evil."

Davanya hesitated, yet like the others, who had found some way to be at peace with their dying, the witch was ready. So she moved around the table, and placed the point of her dagger where it would slide in swift and merciful.

The witch did not flinch, closing her eyes, and only inhaled sharply at the piercing point. True to her word, the final breath escaped her lips in the shape and sound of a single name.

"Davanya."

* * *

There is always a catch, and sometimes, it is one that may not be avoided. Be aware of this, children, when you make deals with the devil, or the dead cry to you for succor.

**Author's Note:**

> Did she take the 7th victim? I leave that to your imagination.


End file.
